Salvador

I sighed as I sat down in my office chair, closed my eyes, and leaned my head back. I didn't like the fact that I was getting home so late, but work was work and I had to go when called. Taking down a shooting suspect was not my idea of a good time. I was just glad no one on my team had been hurt. The shooter was in custody—a little bruised around the edges—and we'd all been able to go home. I called that a win for the day.

I couldn't wait to go up and see Lany. I just needed a minute to decompress.

I needed the silence.

I glared at my cell phone when it rang.

I didn't recognize the phone number, but I did recognize the area code. I picked it up and answered it. "Hello?"

"Dad?"

"Hey, TJ." It was good to hear from my son. It had been a few months since he'd come home on a mission to straighten Levi out. I tried not to worry when he didn't call, but I wasn't very successful. He was my boy, and I was proud of him, but still...he was my boy. "How are you, son?"

"I need you."

I sat up straighter. "You have me."

"Can you and Papà and the guys come out here? I think I'm in trouble."

I put my cell phone on speaker and then reached for the house phone. "I'm calling Angelo right now. He'll let us use his jet." There was no hesitation on my part. If TJ said he needed us, we were going.

"Just get here."

I could hear the fear in TJ's voice, and it scared me more than anything. That sound should not be coming from my boy. He was in the Marines. He should be safe.

"Angie, it's Sal," I said as soon as I heard the house line connect. "I need to borrow your jet to fly out to California. TJ is in trouble."

"You have it," my brother replied. "I'll call my pilot right now and have him gas it up. It will be waiting for you in my private hanger."

"Thank you. I'm also going to need to borrow Sam for a few days. TJ needs the entire team out there."

"Fuck, what's going on?"

"I'm still trying to figure that out, but TJ is scared."

"When do you need to leave?" Angelo asked.

"As soon as I get everyone together and out to your hanger." I also needed to call the police commissioner, and Lany's uncle, to let him know one of his SWAT units was going to be out for a few days. He wouldn't like it, but he would understand it.

I hope.

"I'll let Sam know."

"Thank you," I said again. I hung up and then turned my attention back to my son. "Okay, tell me what's going on, TJ."

"A couple of guys on my unit transferred out. At least, that's what we were told, but I overheard a conversation a couple of days ago that leads me to believe they were taken against their will. I tried to talk to Lieutenant Colonel Stokes about it, but he's not here right now, so I went to the sergeant major. He told me to mind my own business."

If anyone could figure out something was wrong and people were being taken against their will, it would be TJ. He'd lived through something like that in the past.

"What about Stokes? Where is he?" If I could track him down, maybe I could figure out what was upsetting TJ so much.

"Lieutenant Colonel Stokes has been in Washington, D.C., at some sort of conference for the last month."

Damn.

"Levi and I talked about it and decided we needed to reach someone higher up than our sergeant, you know? We sent a letter to the guy taking over for Lieutenant Colonel Stokes, but..."

"Go on."

"Well, Levi has disappeared. He wasn't in his bunk when we got up this morning, and we were given the same bullshit story about him being transferred, except I know he wouldn't do that, not without telling me first."

I heard TJ's hard swallow through the phone.

"Dad, I'm afraid I'm going to be next."

"Not if I have anything to say about it." No one was going to fuck with my kid while I had a breath left in my body. "Just keep your head down until I get there, okay? We'll leave here just as soon as I can get everyone together."

"I will, Dad. Just hurry."

"I will, son. Is there anything else you can tell me?"

"Not much," TJ replied. "Like I said, a few guys in the unit transferred out. No one really thought about it because that happens, you know?"

"I do." Not everyone was cut out to be a Marine. Some transferred out. Others transferred to other military bases because their MOS changed and they needed to be trained somewhere else. Others transferred to their permanent post. It happened.

"Then the other night, Levi and I were assigned night patrol. We found an unoccupied vehicle parked by one of the storage warehouses. Levi reported it, and then we searched the area to see if we could locate the driver. That's when we overheard a couple of guys talking."

"What were they saying?"

"Well, at first, it didn't make sense. They kept talking about some package and that if their contact didn't show up soon, they were going to have to leave without it. And then one of them mentioned two of the guys who'd been transferred out of the unit by name, and he laughed, saying how easy it was to sneak them off base without anyone seeing a thing."

Porca troia.

"They actually mentioned two of the guys who had transferred out?" I asked.

"By name, Dad."

"Is there any way these guys could have left on their own? Like, maybe these guys were helping them sneak off base or something?" I didn't believe it, but I had to cover all my bases.

"No, because the other guy said it would have been easier to get them off base if they were allowed to give them a bigger dose of a sedative. They needed to knock them out, not just make them easily dealt with."

"Did they say what kind of sedative they were giving these guys?"

"No, they just said sedative, but the first guy argued that they couldn't give them too much sedative because that would make them useless, and then they'd just have to find more guys, and that was more work than it was worth."

Kidnapping Marines? Was that a thing?